As dawn emerged on Valentine’s Day, three figures approached a glass storefront of The Jewelry Center in Paramus, remained for a few seconds as if scoping out the store, then walked away in different directions.

Three minutes later, the back of a Ford pickup slammed through the doors and crashed into a jewelry counter. Then, two thieves quickly entered, hooked up a cable from the truck to a nearby safe and dragged it out of the store. A stolen backhoe was then used to load the safe into a getaway vehicle, police have said.

How one of the most brazen jewelry store heists in Paramus went down — a job that netted the thieves $250,000 worth of jewelry — was captured on high-definition black-and-white footage released by Paramus police on Tuesday. The revealing 15-minute silent video is expected to assist authorities in determining how the crime happened and who may have been involved. Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg said he also hopes it will generate tips from the public.

That could be especially important as police investigate whether the Paramus crime — considered unusual because the suspects appeared to use the cleanup from a major snowstorm as a cover — is connected with two burglaries in Union County that have similar characteristics.

Around 1 a.m. on New Year’s Day, thieves drove a truck repeatedly through the storefront of the Union Jewelers Exchange on Route 22 in Union, according to published reports. However, they left a backhoe behind in the store after the store’s owner said he believed they attempted to haul away a safe but weren’t able to take it.

And during a heavy Feb. 9 snowstorm last year, bandits used a front-end loader to crash through a side entrance of the Jewelry Plaza on Route 22 in Springfield around 5 a.m., according to published reports. They stole a large safe weighing hundreds of pounds that contained jewelry and cash and used the front-end loader to place the safe in the rear of a truck, police said. The police were notified of the burglary by state plow workers who were clearing Route 22 west and reported that a piece of construction equipment had struck a building.

“This was a well planned crime as the suspects chose a heavy snowstorm to commit the crime, and because of the weather conditions this would be the only time that a front-end loader, which must be transported on a flatbed trailer, would not arouse much attention as it traveled on Route 22 west from Hillside into Springfield as it would appear it was being used to plow the Route 22 highway,” Springfield Police Chief John Cook said in a release at the time.

In Paramus, the video from The Jewelry Center on Route 4 west, which begins at 6:39 a.m. Friday, first shows one figure approaching the glass doors of the store’s west side and walking away, then three shadows approach the entrance before moving away again.

A few minutes pass before a Ford pickup truck — stolen earlier in Essex County — can be seen at 6:44 a.m. crashing through the doors and striking a counter, sending glass and the frame of the doors flying.

Then, the truck was partially pulled out of the store and two people can be seen entering, pulling aside the broken pieces. One person then scampered over the debris to the employee side of the counter, dragging a cable that was attached to the truck. The person headed straight for a safe and attached the cable. The two then wave to the driver of the truck, who hits the gas and drags the safe from the showroom floor.

A backhoe, also stolen from a Route 17 construction site in Paramus and believed to have been driven to the scene, is then viewed through the doors moving across the parking lot and loading the safe into another vehicle. The driver of the backhoe is seen running from it toward the waiting vehicle.

From the time the pickup slams into the store to when the thieves flee takes approximately three minutes.

The owner, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, told police the safe contained about $250,000 in jewelry. The store, which has 44 independent professional jewelers, reopened at 1 p.m. Friday after the storefront was temporarily secured.

Ehrenberg said the investigation is in the early stages, but there is no evidence to indicate that it was an inside job.

“We’re still investigating this and tracking down leads,” Ehrenberg said.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or may have information is asked to contact the Paramus Police Department at 201-262-3400, ext. 553.